The truth is that everyone actually hires mediocre people, otherwise we wouldn't get so many comments about mentor people on teams and performance reviews would look very different.

That said, very few people think of themselves as average. Just looking at the comments here on hacker news, everyone feels they are the A players and if they aren't selected for something it's because management sucks or they aren't understood, or some other excuse.

We could all stand to be a hell of a lot more humble.